Chapter VI. The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Material
Universe.

There are many who think of the work of
the Holy Spirit as limited to man. But God
reveals to us in His Word that the Holy
Spirit's work has a far wider scope than this. We are
taught in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has a threefold
work in the material universe.

I. The creation of the material universe and of man is
effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

We read in Ps. xxxiii. 6, By the word of the Lord
were the heavens made; and all the host of them by
the breath of His mouth. We have already seen in
our study of the names of the Holy Spirit that the
Holy Spirit is the breath of Jehovah, so this passage
teaches us that all the hosts of heaven, all the stellar
worlds, were made by the Holy Spirit. We are taught
explicitly in Job xxxiii. 4, that the creation of man is
the Holy Spirit's work. We read, The Spirit of God
hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath
given me life. Here both the creation of the material
frame and the impartation of life are attributed to the
agency of the Holy Spirit. In other passages of Scripture
we are taught that creation was in and through
the Son of God. For example we read in Col. i. 16,
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R. V., For in Him were all things created, in the
heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or powers; all things have been created through
Him and unto Him. In a similar way we read in
Heb. i. 2, that God hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir
of all things, through whom also He made the worlds
(ages). In the passage given above (Ps. xxxiii. 6), the
Word as well as the Spirit are mentioned in connection
with creation. In the account of the creation
and the rehabilitation of this world to be the abode of
man, Father, Word and Holy Spirit are all mentioned
(Gen. i. 1-3). It is evident from a comparison of
these passages that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
all active in the creative work. The Father works in
His Son, through His Spirit.

II. Not only is the original creation of the material
universe attributed to the agency of the Holy Spirit in
the Bible but the maintenance of living creatures as
well.

We read in Ps. civ. 29, 30, Thou hidest Thy face,
they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath,
they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth
Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face
of the earth. The clear indication of this passage is
that not only are things brought into being through the
agency of the Holy Spirit, but that they are maintained
in being by the Holy Spirit. Not only is spiritual life
maintained by the Spirit of God but material being as
well. Things exist and continue by the presence of
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the Spirit of God in them. This does not mean for a
moment that the universe is God, but it does mean that
the universe is maintained in its being by the immanence
of God in it. This is the great and solemn truth
that lies at the foundation of the awful and debasing
perversions of Pantheism in its countless forms.

III. But not only is the universe created through
the agency of the Holy Spirit and maintained in its existence
through the agency of the Holy Spirit, but the
development of the earlier, chaotic, undeveloped states of the
material universe into higher orders of being is effected
through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

We read in Gen, i. 2, 3, And the earth was (or
became) without form and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
Let there be light: and there was light. We may
take this account to refer either to the original creation
of the universe, or we may take it as the deeper
students of the Word are more and more inclining to
take it, as the account of the rehabilitation of the earth
after its plunging into chaos through sin after the
original creation described in v. 1. In either case we
have set before us here the development of the earth
from a chaotic and unformed condition into its present
highly developed condition through the agency of the
Holy Spirit. We see the process carried still further
in Gen. ii. 7, And the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul. Here
again it is through the agency of the breath of God,
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that a higher thing, human life, comes into being.
Naturally, as the Bible is the history of man's redemption
it does not dwell upon this phase of truth, but
seemingly each new and higher impartation of the
Spirit of God brings forth a higher order of being.
First, inert matter; then motion; then light; then vegetable
life; then animal life; then man; and, as we shall
see later, then the new man; and then Jesus Christ,
the supreme Man, the completion of God's thought of
man, the Son of Man. This is the Biblical thought
of development from the lower to the higher by the
agency of the Spirit of God as distinguished from the
godless evolution that has been so popular in the generation
now closing. It is, however, only hinted at in
the Bible. The more important phases of the Holy
Spirit's work, His work in redemption, are those that
are emphasized and iterated and reiterated. The Word
of God is even more plainly active in each state of
progress of creation. God said occurs ten times in the
first chapter of Genesis.